Changes

{{Frontpage|class-"wikitable" cellpaddingisbn="15" <!-- INSERT NEW REVIEWS BELOW HERE-->AllTomorrowsFutureCover|title=All Tomorrow's Futures: Fictions that Disrupt|author=Benjamin Greenaway and Stephen Oram (Editors)|rating=5|genre=Science Fiction|summary=''Opening up new ways of thinking about the shape of things to come.''

<!I've heard it said that 'technology' is what happens after you're eighteen. Well, I must confess that there have been more than a few decades of technology in my lifetime. I've kept up reasonably well with what's advantageous to me but I'm left with the feeling that it's all getting away from me. Some of it is -frankly - Graves -->quite frightening. Of course, I could research the possibilities and the probabilities and end up down rabbit holes without really understanding whether I'm reading someone who knows what they're talking about or the latest conspiracy theorist. I needed people I knew I could trust and who could deliver information in a way I could understand.}}{{Frontpage|author=Sylvie Cathrall|-title=A Letter to the Luminous Deep| stylerating="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"5|genre=Science Fiction[[image:194927201X.jpg|linksummary=http://wwwThere are few greater joys than a book which lives up to a compelling premise.amazonAnd this is one of them.co.uk/dp/194927201X/ref|isbn=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]0356522776}} {{Frontpage |isbn=1803816759| styletitle="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"The Unravelling|author=Will Gibson|rating=4|genre=Science Fiction|summary=[[Lakes It's 2038 and Joe is a bored cop policing the wealthy and peaceful New York City. Joe longs for a bit of adventure and to get stuck into some really gritty crime detection. But then something goes horribly wrong with the AI system that now runs everything, making life easier for many, and riots start to spread. Finally, Joe gets to do some real policing. In the aftermath of Mars by Merritt Graves]]the rioting global pop star Suki is kidnapped and Joe is assigned to bring her home. Joe isn't the only one trying to save Suki - Dylan, a British superfan and tech nerd, is also on the case. What went wrong? Did the system fail or was it hacked? And how is Suki's kidnapping connected?}}{{Frontpage|isbn=B0CP95J1CG|title=Of Ghosts & Broken Promises|author=Mark Lingane [[image:|rating=4.5star.jpg5|linkgenre=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Science Fiction|Science Fiction]] Aaron Sheridan doesn’t want summary= Ronan's not entirely sure why he decides to go to live anymore. His entire family had just died in a shuttle crash and he’d been the one flying party but his interest is piqued by the way itarrived. Unable And it seems like a good opportunity to deal with get out of his room and away from the guilt, online activities he signs up for the Fleet expecting makes a fatal deployment to the Rim War, but instead ends up living at their most prestigious command school, Corinth Station. InitiallySo he makes his way there, he’s detached from dodging the brutality buses that make up most of his instructors the traffic and watching the Machiavellian tactics of local energy storage indicator lights. Should be enough power. Hopefully.}}{{Frontpage|author=K P O'Donnell|title=The Vital Link (A Spark in the other students thereAshes)|rating=3.5|genre=Science Fiction|summary=VL-15, but after he sticks up for his only friend he makes himself a target of prototype robot, is desperate to understand who she is. Unfortunately, before she could find any answers, the most feared cadet on world ended, consumed in an apocalyptic war between the stationnations of Drexel and Renada. Over half-a-century later, Caelus Erikcivilisation is starting to rebuild. Unsure of whom Dr Amelia Wong is determined to trust continue her father's legacy, building a world where machines and worried that anything he does will make others on his flight team targets as wellhumans can live together in harmony, Aaron retreats deeper but internal frictions and deeper inside himselfexternal enemies might bring it all crashing down again. HoweverCraig Anderson, leader of a group of salvagers called the Exhumers, has his entire life turned upside down when he discovers that officer training is not unearths a prototype combat robot: none other than VL-15 herself. Even after being buried for 65 years, her determination hasn't diminished in the station’s only purposeslightest, and no errant machine, it becomes increasingly clear that risking everything is the safest thing he can dono savage human tribe and not even Drexel's ravaged ecosystem will stop her on her quest for answers…|isbn=B0CKRYFRZM}}{{Frontpage|author=Emily Tesh|title=Some Desperate Glory|rating=4. [[Lakes of Mars by Merritt Graves5|genre=Science Fiction|Full Review]]summary=''While Earth's children live, the enemy shall fear us''

<!--Merritt Graves -->Following the destruction of the Earth, amongst a rare number of survivors, Kyr has been raised on Gaea Station – the home of the last scraps of humanity – and trained relentlessly to avenge her people and the world that should have been hers. All her life, she has been conditioned to fall in line, to fulfil her duty and ensure that humanity perseveres.|-isbn=0356521834}}{{Frontpage| styleauthor="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|M R Carey[[image:1949272028.jpg|linktitle=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1949272028/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]] Infinity Gate| stylerating="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|5===[[Sunlight 24 by Merritt Graves]]=== [[image:4star.jpg|linkgenre=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category: Science Fiction|Science Fiction]] If the game wasn’t fair before, it’s definitely not fair nowsummary= I'm annoyingly picky when it comes to science fiction. Or so thinks Dorian Waters, part Not because it's a genre I dislike – nothing of the ever-expanding portion of humanity who can’t afford the nano-implant and genetic augmentation regimen known as Revisionsort. And My standards are high precisely because he can’t afford Revisionit's a hard genre to get right – and when it's bad, he can’t get into collegeit's often terrible. He can’t get a job. And when he sees But the brilliant and mesmerizing Lena for the first time, he knows he doesn’t have a chance with her, eitherpremise of Infinity Gate had me hooked. Feeling thoroughly lost and exasperated, Dorian robs A concept this intriguing felt like a house with his best friendhigh-stakes gamble: if it was done well, Ethan. Then they do it again'd be fantastic. It’s thrilling and terrifying and deeply unsettlingSo this is where I sum up that premise. |isbn=0356518043}}{{Frontpage|author= Michael Grothaus|title=Beautiful Shining People|rating=4|genre= Literary Fiction|summary= ''But since they take so little each time that their targets don’t notice, they’re able fearing something and having it come to keep at it until they have enough money saved uppass are two different things. Once they do their first Revision, their initial choices in self-enhancement start impacting their future choices, which in turn impact their future Revision––on and on in a downward spiral of self-destruction. Dorian desperately wants And I'm willing to slow things down and figure out the kind bet most of person he really wants to bewhat we fear will never happen, but with the police one step behind them and a contentious relationship with his brother, Jaden, threatening or we can take steps to unravel everything, it’s the expedient choices that he’s finding himself more and more compelled to makechange it. [[Sunlight 24 by Merritt Graves|Full Review]]''

<!-- Peter F Hamilton -->''Beautiful Shining People'' revolves around the question of identity and acceptance. Of what it means to be human. Of what is real and what is artificial, and whether the development of technology is exciting or frightening.|-isbn=191458564X}}{{Frontpage| styleisbn="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|1739593901[[image:1447281357.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1447281357/ref=nosim?tagtitle=thebookbag-21]] 22 Ideas About The Future| styleauthor="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"Benjamin Greenaway and Stephen Oram (Editors)|===[[Salvation Lost by Peter F Hamilton]]==rating=5 [[image:4star.jpg|linkgenre=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Science Fiction]]|summary=''Our future will be more complex than we expected. Instead of flying cars, we got night-vision killer drones and automated elderly care with geolocation surveillance bracelets to track grandma.''

In I've got a couple of confessions to make. I'm not keen on short stories as I find it easy to read a few stories and then forget to return to the book. There's got to be a very compelling hook to keep me engaged. Then there's science fiction: far too often it's the technology which takes centre stage along with the world-building. It's human beings who fascinate me: the technology and the world scape are purely incidental. So, what did I think of a book of twenty-third centurytwo science fiction short stories? Well, I loved it. }}{{Frontpage|author=Mark Lingane|title=Galaxy|rating=4|genre=Science Fiction|summary=Spark, humanity who is enjoying an elite pilot with the Space Academy, barely makes it through a comparative utopiabattle alive. His co-pilot was not so fortunate. Yet life on Waking from a coma that lasted years, he remembers little and is in no physical shape to resume his duties. But Earth is about under threat and he must. Returned by his superiors to the space station, he finds himself amid a last ditch attempt to changesave humanity - and not just from the alien threats against it, foreverbut also from its own sins against itself. Feriton Kane|isbn=B09X3NZ76W}}{{Frontpage|author=Tade Thompson|title=Far From the Light of Heaven|rating=4.5|genre=Science Fiction|summary=Michelle 'Shell' Campion is fulfilling her lifelong dream of going to space. As first officer aboard the sleeper ship Ragtime, bound for the world of Bloodroot, she will essentially be a babysitter for the ship's investigative team has discovered AI captain. However, when she wakes up at the worst threat ever end of her trip to face mankind – find dozens of her passengers butchered and wethe Ragtime've s AI almost non-responsive, she begins to realise that her first mission won't be going as smoothly as she hoped it would. Down on Bloodroot, disgraced investigator Rasheed Fin and his android partner Salvo are sent up to discover exactly what went wrong on the Ragtime. Meanwhile, former astronaut and friend of Shell's father Lawrence Biz takes a shuttle to Bloodroot, half-alien daughter in tow, to see why the Ragtime has gone quiet, leaving behind the politicking and bureaucracy of Space Station Lagos. What the five of them discover on the Ragtime has ramifications not just for Bloodroot, but potentially the entirety of human space…|isbn=0356514323}}{{Frontpage|author=Claire North|title=Notes from the Burning Age|rating=4|genre=Science Fiction|summary=At its core ''Notes From the Burning Age'' by Claire North is a spy thriller, with as many double crosses, interrogations and night time escapes as Le Carre or Fleming. However, as with the best novels, it wears many masks and its most affecting one is that of a new and timely genre, cli-fi, or climate change fiction. North's novel tells of a world devastated by climate change where humans have been forced to start anew and live alongside nature without any of the modern and corrupting "luxuries" (read: fossil fuels, weapons of mass destruction, intensive farming). There is a growing unhappiness with this limiting world, and one group, the Brotherhood, aims to master these processes no time matter the cost to the Earth.|isbn=0356514757}}{{Frontpage|author= Adrian Tchaikovsky|title= Shards of Earth|rating= 4|genre= Science Fiction|summary= Eighty years ago, Earth was destroyed, warped into an unrecognisable shape by the moon-sized aliens known as the Architects. Humanity is scattered, constantly fleeing as world after world falls to the architect's reshaping. Then, just when they had the human race on the run, the Architects vanished. And so, the memories of the war fades, heroes are forgotten, and humanity begins to fracture and fight among themselves. Idris Telemmier, a man genetically engineered to try and communicate with the Architects, does not want to be remembered. But, when he and the crew of the salvage ship he calls home discover what appears to be recent Architect activity, suddenly he is thrust backinto the spotlight. As he and his allies bounce from star system to star system, chased by alien crime syndicates, human secret police and rich slavers, he slowly begins to realise that the real war is only just getting started…|isbn=1529051886}}{{Frontpage|author=Terry Miles|title=Rabbits|rating=4.5|genre=Science Fiction|summary=Welcome to the world of The supposedly benign Olyix plan Game. Or should that be the game, for while it ought to be capitalised to harvest humanityhigh heaven, it never leaves lower case throughout this book. It's also called Rabbits, although only as a slangy term for it – as far as anyone knows, it has no official title, no official source, no hard and fast structure, and to the average person no obvious entry point. A bit like the game of life then. Yes, this is the game of life for a certain tribe of people – the fan of the conspiracy, the computer game, the hack from the darkest of webs. People like our hero, K, named like that in the least Kafkaesque manner possible. K and his bezzies are trying to be historians of the game, and have studied amongst many things the most unique of high score boards, for the lists of who has successfully won the game are in the most peculiar places, and are still very short. However this time it's different. This time the game seems the most dangerous, nay lethal, the most broken it's ever been – morally and otherwise. Unfortunately for K, in order trying to carry us sort out what the game is doing, if it's even being played, and how his loved ones might be kept safe, he is only to their god at find out that the line between observing and learning about the game, and playing it, is a very thin one indeed...|isbn=1529016932}}{{Frontpage|author=C J Carey|title=Widowland|rating=4|genre=General Fiction|summary=It's April 1953, and Adolf Hitler's schedule includes going to Moscow to attend the end state funeral of Joseph Stalin then within weeks coming to London, parading around a bit, and watching over the universesanctioned return to the throne of Edward VIII with his wife, Queen Wallis. And For yes, Britain caved in the lead-up to the World War Two that certainly didn't happen as we know it, and we are now a protectorate – well, we share enough of the same blood as their agents conclude schemes down the Germanic peoples on earth''the mainland''. But this is most certainly a different Britain, for Nazi-styled phrenology, and ideas of female purpose, has put all of that gender into a caste system, ranging from high-brow office bigwigs to the drudges, and beyond those, vast warships converge above right on down to gather the childless, the husbandless and the widows. Female literacy is actively discouraged. And in this cargopuritanical existence, our heroine, Rose Ransom, is employed with the task of bowdlerising classical literature to take all encouragement for female emancipation out of it – after all, not every book can be banned, and not every story excised immediately from British civilisation, and so they just get a hefty tweak towards the party line before they're stamped ready for reprint. Some factions push That is her job, at least, until the first emerging signs of female protest come to light, with their potential to spoil Hitler's visit.|isbn=152941198X}}{{Frontpage|author=Everina Maxwell|title=Winter's Orbit|rating=5|genre=Science Fiction|summary= Prince Kiem is a famous political disappointment. He's outgoing, carefree, and has gotten into many drunken scandals over the past few years. So when an important political alliance is to be arranged – one that is supposed to prevent an interplanetary war – no one expects him to be chosen for humanity the role. Least of all him.|isbn=0356515885}}{{Frontpage|author=Rob Winters|title=His Name Was Wren|rating=4|genre=Confident Readers|summary=In September 1944 something came down in Oban Woods, near the village of Hurstwick. It came down hard, taking the spire of the village church with it, destroying a stone shack, and leaving a wide trail through the wood, but no trace of what it actually was. German secret weapon was the local gossip, but there should have been an explosion and a crater, and there were neither of those things.|isbn=B08KGVNVNB}}{{Frontpage|author=Mark Lingane|title=Note to Self: An Education|rating=4|genre=Science Fiction|summary= In Kry's world, the discovery that human cells replace themselves every seven years results in a cascade of medical "advances": in 2030 it's found that radiation can return cells back to their regeneration state seven years before, in 2035 it's possible to fleecure cancerous tumours but with the side effect of erasing seven years of memory, by 2045 the cosmetics industry is using the same technique to live "de-age" their customers by seven years. In a society obsessed with image and youth, who needs memories?|isbn=B08LY8J4KS}} {{Frontpage|author= Christopher Paolini|title= To Sleep in hiding amongst a Sea of Stars|rating= 5|genre= Science Fiction|summary= On the stars – although only moon of a chosen few would distant gas giant, Xenobiologist Kira Navárez is helping with the efforts to make it out the planet habitable to human life. However, a discovery of an ancient alien bunker under the moon's surface leaves her bonded with a strange alien entity. After the entity bonded to her loses control and kills half the staff of the research station, the United Military Command cruiser Extenuating Circumstances arrives in the system to take Kira in timefor examination. But others refuse Things go from bad to worse when the Extenuating Circumstances is attacked and destroyed by an alien ship, and she has to flee to break before the storm61 Cygnus star system. She is revived aboard the freighter Wallfish, crewed by Captain Falconi and a rag-tag bunch of misfits, and the news is grim. The same aliens that destroyed the Extenuating Circumstances are now wreaking havoc across all of human-occupied space, and only a mythical weapon known as the Staff of Blue can stop them. As disaster loomsthe death toll climbs and more players are introduced into this war, animosities must be set aside Kira slowly begins to focus on just realise that she may have had a greater hand in the conflict than she could've possibly imagined…|isbn=1529046505}}{{Frontpage|author= Laura Lam and Elizabeth May|title= Seven Devils|rating= 4|genre= Science Fiction|summary= Eris is one goalof the foremost operatives of the Novantae, a resistance movement fighting against the ruthlessly expansionist Tholosian Empire – an Empire she was destined to inherit in her past life as Princess Discordia, whom everyone believed has been dead for years. Clo, an ace pilot for the Novantae, has a mission: wiping hijack a Tholosian spacecraft to gather information vital to the war effort. Although she's less than pleased to discover that her former friend Eris is her partner on this mission. Things get more interesting as the mission commences; aboard the ship are three defectors with a secret that could potentially cripple the Empire. Eris's brother Damocles, the runner-up heir to the Empire, is plotting to disrupt peace talks between Tholos and the last of the free alien species. It's a race against time as the rebels move to put a stop Damocles' plans, with millions of lives hanging in the balance…|isbn=1473231140}}{{Frontpage|author=Frederic Beigbeder and Frank Wynne (translator)|title=A Life Without End|rating=4|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=I looked at the calendar the other week, and disappointedly realised I have a birthday this enemy from year – I know, yet another one. It won't be one of the major numbers, but the time when I have the same number as Heinz varieties looms on the horizon. And then a few of the face big 0-numbers, and if all goes well, I'll be an OBE. (Which of creationcourse stands for Over Bloody Eighty. Even ) Now if it means preparing that's the extent of my mid-life crisis, I guess I have to be happy. Our author here doesn't use that exact phrase, but he might be said to be living one. Determined to find out how to prolong life for as long as he wants – he would like to see 400 – he hops right into bed with the assistant to the first geneticist he interviews, and they end up with a child, which is at least a future this generation will never seeway of continuing the life of his genes, and a motive to keep on going. [[Salvation Lost by Peter F Hamilton But how can he get to not flick the 'final way out' switch, especially when foie gras tastes so nice?|Full Review]]isbn=1642860670}}

<!-- Megan E O'Keefe -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:0356512223.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0356512223/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]] | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[Velocity Weapon by Megan E O'Keefe]]=== [[image:4.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Science Fiction]] The last thing Sanda remembers is her gunship exploding. She expected to be recovered by salvage-medics and to awaken in friendly hands, patched-up and ready to rejoin the fight. Instead she wakes up 230 years later, Move on a deserted enemy starship called The Light of Berossus - or, as he prefers to call himself, 'Bero'. Bero tells Sanda the war is lost. That the entire star system is dead. But is that the full story? After all, in the vastness of space, anything is possible . . . [[Velocity Weapon by Megan E O'Keefe|Full Review]] <!-- Vaughn -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:0751568228.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0751568228/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[Across the Void by S K Vaughn]]=== [[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Science Fiction|Science Fiction]] Sea epics? So 20th century. Try a space epic. [[Across the Void by S K Vaughn|Full Review]] <!-- Chiang -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:1529014484.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1529014484/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[Exhalation by Ted Chiang]]=== [[image:5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Science Fiction|Science Fiction]], [[:Category:Newest Short Stories|Short Stories]] Over the past twenty-eight years Ted Chiang has published fifteen science fiction short stories, these magnificent stories have won twenty-seven major science fiction awards so if you are a science fiction fan it is likely that you have already come across some of the work by Ted Chiang. If you haven't than take this opportunity to do so now. Trust me; your imagination will be grateful. [[Exhalation by Ted Chiang|Full Review]] <!-- Doescher -->|-| style=''width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;''|[[image:168369094X.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/168369094X/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style=''vertical-align: top; text-align: left;''|===[[William Shakespeare's Get Thee Back to the Future! by Ian Doescher]]=== [[image:4.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Humour|Humour]], [[:Category:Science Fiction|Science Fiction]] A long time ago, in a publishing house far away, [[:Category:Ian Doescher|someone]] thought it wonderfully wacky to rewrite the story of Star Wars in Shakespearean pentameter, colliding two entirely different genres and styles in such a clever way they seemed perfectly suited. It was then duly repeated for all the other films in the main Star Wars cycle, and clearly someone's buffing their quills ready for Episode Nine, the title of which became public knowledge the day before I write. In the hiatus, however, the effort has been made to see if the same shtick works with other texts, and to riff on other seemingly unlikely source materials in iambs. And could we have anything more suitably unsuitable-seeming than Back to the Future, with its tales of time travel, bullying, and parent/child strife like no other? [[William Shakespeare's Get Thee Back to the Future! by Ian Doescher|Full Review]] <!-- Martine -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:1529001579.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1529001579/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine]]=== [[image:4.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Science Fiction|Science Fiction]] The problem with Martine's fiction debut is that she makes the two commonest errors in SF writing: she tries to be too clever and she wants her fictional languages to be complex and rich and errs on the side of making them unpronounceable by most readers. I can see why she does both, but it's a disappointment because they're the blocks against which the brilliance of the book stumbles. [[A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine|Full Review]] <!-- Lingane -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:B07NV8NY4Y.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07NV8NY4Y/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"| ===[[The Rose, the Night, and the Mirror by Mark Lingane]]=== [[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Science Fiction|Science Fiction]]  Julian's family are getting pretty fed up with his perma-student status. They feel that the maths PHD candidate should start earning some money. To that end, they have managed to find him a job tutoring the children of a highly regarded politician. Julian bowls up at their strange, austere mansion with little in the way of expectation. Victor, the politician is not at home. But Esis, his wife, is. A beautiful but isolated woman, Esis shows little interest in her children and not much more in Julian. She directs him towards his room, the library in which he will teach the children, and the kitchen, whose chefbot will provide him with food. [[The Rose, the Night, and the Mirror by Mark Lingane|Full Review]]  <!-- Arnold -->|-| style=''width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;''|[[image:1789016525.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1789016525/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style=''vertical-align: top; text-align: left;''|===[[Betrayed by Geoffrey Arnold]]=== [[image:3.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Science Fiction|Science Fiction]] In an extension of the story begun by Geoffrey Arnold in ''Ripped Apart'', he continues to tell the story of the Quantum twins. Born on a parallel world, these genetically identical twins interfered with an experiment and were hurtled through space-time to our earth - and a series of adventures ensued in the following books. When we rejoin them in ''Betrayed'' we find Tullia struggling to adapt to life in the bush - adopted by a Bushman family and made part of a tribe. Twin Qwelby however, is not doing so well - shocked by the violence on the earth. Rescued by an old friend, he then tries to help a girl called Xaala - but her ulterior motives may well prove to drive a wedge between the twins as they try to reconnect... [[Betrayed by Geoffrey Arnold|Full Review]] <!-- Marrs -->|-| style=''width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;''|[[image:1785038885.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1785038885/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style=''vertical-align: top; text-align: left;''|===[[The Passengers by John Marrs]]=== [[image:4.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Science Fiction|Science Fiction]], [[:Category:Thrillers|Thrillers]] In the near future, self-drive cars are the norm - a convenient and easy way of transport. However, when someone hacks into the systems of eight self-drive cars, their passengers are set on a fatal collision course. As everyday commutes turn into terror-filled journeys, the public have to judge who should survive. But with every aspect of these passangers being examined by the public - will they turn out to be what they seem? [[The Passengers by John Marrs|Full Review]] <!-- Beckett -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:1786491559.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1786491559/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[Beneath the World, A Sea by Chris Beckett]]=== [[image:3.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Science Fiction|Science Fiction]] South America, 1990. Ben Ronson, a British police officer, arrives in a mysterious forest to investigate a spate of killings of Duendes. These silent, vaguely humanoid creatures - with long limbs and black button eyes - have a strange psychic effect on people, unleashing the subconscious and exposing their innermost thoughts and fears. Ben becomes fascinated by the Duendes, but the closer he gets, the more he begins to unravel, with terrifying results... [[Beneath the World, A Sea by Chris Beckett|Full Review]] <!-- Hill -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:1789090016.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1789090016/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[Zero Bomb by M T Hill]]=== [[image:3.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Science Fiction|Science Fiction]] Meet Remi. He's a fan of running, and indeed has been – from the wife and life he abandoned when they buried their seven year old daughter. Now working in London as a courier, he's taking a routine piece of samizdat literature across town when he's seemingly attacked by a driverless car. Struggling to keep to his schedule, he takes to the Tube, where mysterious people sit with him – and regale him with cryptic clues that mention his dead child. Slowly, woozily, he's drawn into a completely surreal scenario, as he tries to find out what is wanted of him, and by whom – and indeed, who he himself even is. [[Zero Bomb by M T Hill|Full Review]] <!-- Jason Boggs -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:154564134X.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/154564134X/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[The Dragon's Harvest by Jason F Boggs]]=== [[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Science Fiction|Science Fiction]] Young Nelson Jones was a young and gifted military cadet in the fascist new world order called the 'New Era'. As his experiences led him on a path of conflict and self-discovery, he became a changed man. Picking up 20 months after the events of ''The Devil's Dragon'', Nelson is on an expedition to uncover the mystery of the sungates, when a terrible secret leads to horrifying discoveries for all involved. Meanwhile, the humans and the Aesini fight for their very existence, as Nelson's nemesis, Major Ira Billis, finds a terrifying new ally in a quest to restore the New Era to glory. As Nelson and his friends race against the clock in order to defeat this new threat, they find themselves facing a power beyond imagination… [[The Dragon's Harvest by Jason F Boggs|Full Review]] <!-- Anders -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:1785653199.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1785653199/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[The City In The Middle Of The Night by Charlie Jane Anders]]=== [[image:3.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Story Reviews]] [[:Category:Science Fiction|Science Fiction]] January is a dying planet. It wasn't exactly pleasant to begin with. One half is scorching sunlight, pure, blazing heat, and totally uninhabitable. The other half is pure darkness and ice, where a creature can freeze to death in seconds, and totally uninhabitable. In the middle is a brief twilight that is barely survivable. Life is a knife-edge, stray too close to one side you die, to close to the other, you die and yet the heat from the sun and the water from the ice are necessary for life. Life for the inhabitants of January is long, and hard, and arduous, will anything ever change? [[The City In The Middle Of The Night by Charlie Jane Anders|Full Review]] <!-- Hamilton -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:1447281322.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1447281322/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[Salvation by Peter F Hamilton]]=== [[image:3.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Science Fiction|Science Fiction]] Apparently the term ''space opera'' was coined in 1941 as a pejorative. It was borrowed not from the high-brow musical art form, but from the common or garden 'soap opera'. It related to a particular kind of science fiction which the coiner (one Wilson Tucker) described as a ''hacky, grinding, stinking, outworn, spaceship yarn". It would be fifty years later before the term started to be re-appropriated to cover – if still the same themes of distant futures, military conflict, heroism and a simplistic set of values – more literary, more expansive works. The term is now taken as compliment. [[Salvation by Peter F Hamilton|Full Review]] <!-- Chadwick -->|-| style=''width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;''|[[image:0349700249.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0349700249/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style=''vertical-align: top; text-align: left;''|===[[XX by Angela Chadwick]]=== [[image:5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:LGBT Fiction|LGBT Fiction]], [[:Category:Science Fiction|Science Fiction]] Angela Chadwick's debut novel explores the possibility of two women being able to produce a baby girl through a process called Ovum-to-Ovum fertilisation. It centres around Rosie and Jules who take part in the first ever clinical trial that would allow them to have a child of their own without the need for a sperm donor or any other male intervention. What follows is a story that shows the harshness and at times disgraceful behaviour of the media, and the general public, when faced with a controversial technique that could lead to the demise of men. [[XX by Angela Chadwick|Full Review]] <!-- Thompson -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:0356511367.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0356511367/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[Rosewater by Tade Thompson]]=== [[image:5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Science Fiction|Science Fiction]] Rosewater is a town on the edge. A community formed around the edges of a mysterious alien biodome, its residents comprise the hopeful, the hungry and the helpless - people eager for a glimpse inside the dome or a taste of its rumoured healing powers. Kaaro is a government agent with a criminal past. He has seen inside the biodome, and doesn't care to again - but when something begins killing off others like himself, Kaaro must defy his masters to search for an answer, facing his dark history and coming to a realisation about a horrifying future. [[Rosewater by Tade Thompson|Full Review]] <!-- DO NOT REMOVE ANYTHING BELOW THIS LINE --> |}